1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a light-emitting apparatus employed for illumination or for decorative illumination, and particularly to a light-emitting apparatus and a lighting system employing a light-emitting diode (LED).
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, as the performance of light-emitting diodes has been remarkably improved, such light-emitting diodes are coming to be employed for store illumination, decorative illumination, or otherwise for household illumination, as well as being employed in conventional applications such as small-size indicators, backlights, etc.
Such a light-emitting diode is strongly directional, leading to difficulty in employing such a light-emitting diode as it is as an alternative to an incandescent light bulb. In order to solve such a problem, for example, Patent document 1 discloses a light-emitting apparatus in which a translucent surrounding member having a surface subjected to frosting processing is arranged such that it surrounds a light-emitting diode, thereby providing diffused illumination with an approximately uniform magnitude over nearly all directions on the exterior of the surrounding member.